Gov. Kim Reynolds’ administration has decided Iowa no longer needs the weekly report on the state from the White House Coronavirus Task Force. “We are not requesting the report at this time,” Iowa Department of Public Health spokesperson Sarah Ekstrand told the Des Moines Register in an email on Monday afternoon. Ekstrand did not respond […]
Community/News
Posted inCommunity/News
Miller-Meeks sworn in as new representative for the 2nd District as the challenge to her election continues
Mariannette Miller-Meeks was sworn in as the representative from Iowa’s 2nd Congressional District on Sunday. But unlike the other 434 members of the U.S. House of Representatives, Miller-Meeks status is still uncertain as the House considers a challenge to the results of the Nov. 3 election. Rita Hart, the Democratic candidate for the open seat […]
Posted inCommunity/News
Cars blocking snow removal in downtown Iowa City will be towed starting at 2 a.m. on Tuesday
City workers will be removing snow from the streets of downtown Iowa City starting at 2 a.m. on Tuesday morning, and vehicles parked in tow-away zones will be removed, the city announced in a news release on Monday afternoon. “Towing will impact Prentiss Street to Market Street, Madison Street to Gilbert Street, as well as […]
Posted inCommunity/News
The Cedar Rapids City Council will vote on a citizen review board for CRPD in early 2021
One of the first items the Cedar Rapids City Council will take up in 2021 will continue work that was started last summer — creating an independent citizen review board in the city. At the council’s first meeting of the new year on Jan. 12, there will be a motion to set a public hearing […]
Posted inCommunity/News
Holiday lights bring ‘the joy and magic’ of the season to downtown Cedar Rapids
Co-founder and artistic director of Revival Theatre Company Brian Glick is combining nostalgia with the glitz of Chicago and New York City for this year’s holiday decorations in downtown Cedar Rapids. This is Glick’s second year decorating downtown. He described it as “quite the undertaking at times” but added that because he’s been able to […]
Posted inCommunity/News
Citing 22 votes she said weren’t counted, Rita Hart asks House of Representatives for a recount in Iowa’s 2nd District
Rita Hart said she would file a Notice of Contest with the Clerk of the U.S. House of Representatives on Tuesday, her campaign announced in a statement, asking the House Committee on Administration to investigate the results of the election for the open seat in Iowa’s 2nd Congressional District and possibly conduct a recount of […]
Posted inCommunity/News
Kirk Ferentz tests positive for COVID-19
Hawkeye football Head Coach Kirk Ferentz has tested positive for COVID-19 and “will remain home until Dec. 27,” the University of Iowa Athletics Department announced in a statement on Friday morning. According to UI Athletics, Ferentz tested positive using a rapid antigen test on Thursday morning, and the results were confirmed by a PCR test. […]
Posted inCommunity/News
Uncertainty remains about how many doses of COVID vaccine Iowa will receive this month
There was confusion on Thursday over how much COVID-19 vaccine Iowa will receive in its initial shipments from the federal government. During her Dec. 3 news conference, Gov. Kim Reynolds said the state had been told it would receive 172,000 doses of the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines by the end of December. But on Wednesday […]
Posted inCommunity/News
Gov. Reynolds relaxes COVID-19 restrictions while Trump administration cuts Iowa’s allotment of vaccine by 30 percent
At her news conference on Wednesday, Gov. Kim Reynolds highlighted how much virus activity in Iowa has declined since she imposed some new COVID-19 restrictions on Nov. 16, before announcing she was relaxing some of those restrictions. “Bars and restaurants can resume their normal hours of operation,” the governor said. In her Nov. 16 emergency […]
Posted inCommunity/News
Iowa is spending $10m in federal pandemic aid on state police salaries
After insisting for two months that spending $21 million in federal pandemic aid on a new computer system unrelated to COVID-19 was a legitimate use of that money, Gov. Kim Reynolds reversed her position on Monday and ordered those funds returned to the state’s Coronavirus Relief Fund. Iowa Auditor Rob Sand first informed the Reynolds […]
Posted inCommunity/News
Healthcare workers in Linn County begin receiving the COVID-19 vaccine
Two Linn County hospitals received their first allotment of the COVID-19 vaccine on Tuesday, Linn County Public Health (LCPH) announced in a news release. Mercy Medical Center and UnityPoint Health-St. Luke’s Hospital each received 975 doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine to distribute to frontline healthcare workers as part of the first phase of vaccine distribution. […]
Posted inCommunity/News
Report: Arrests of journalists in the U.S. reached an all-time high in 2020
The number of journalists arrested or detained in the United States jumped 1,200 percent in 2020 compared to last year, according to a new report released by the Freedom of the Press Foundation on Monday. The U.S. Press Freedom Tracker was founded in 2017 as a repository of press freedom violations in the U.S. Using […]
